Bluebird Mixer. Help Please

Does anyone out there have experince using a Bluebird mixer like the one pictured here?

I have used this sort of mixer a couple times years ago and I may be using it again.  I haven't had very good luck with the mixing process.

I can't remember exactly what went wrong when I used this mixer, maybe that the blades just pushed the clay up and didn't continue mixing. Resulting in my having to stop the mixer and push the clay back down a lot.  Or ?? Heck I can't remember.

Anyhow if anyone has a method of  using this thing, please advise.  I am pretty sure I was adding all my dry materials,  doing a quick dry mix and then adding water with a hose.  Then probably cursing a lot.

Thanks.

Comments

[Nate Willever]

Hey Ron, We have one here at school...they are the devil! We almost never use it because we also have a soldiner. When i used it i noticed it was hard to mix soft clay and was horrible to clean. maybe if you add a little dry mix at a time it will work better

[Brandon Phillips]

i add water first and then dry materials. 3 gallons per 100# dry batch.

when they're first built they are supposed to have some kind of non-stick coating that should keep that from happening. i'm sure that wears off very quickly though.

we have the older version of this mixer at the univ. and i have that problem all the time. we've rigged it so that we can push the clay down while it's mixing(very dangerous.) it's the only way to get it to mix semi-thoroughly. i used to think that i was just doing it wrong but came to find that lots of people have this problem.

there is a guy wolff(sp?) video on youtube showing him mixing clay with the same mixer that i have. i noticed he was not having this problem and that his blades spun the opposite way that mine do. hmmm... i'll be interested to find out if lots of other folks have this problem or if we've just been stupid all these years.

[Andrew Douglas]

Nic has a soldner mixer which is nice but even that sticks if you put in too much water at a time or if there is old clay left in it. Not much help, I know...

[ron]

Thanks guys, that's all helpful. Brandon I appreciate the numbers. I did see on Clayart that someone mentioned that they can switch their mixer to run in the opp. direction.
The Soldner is the best, I don't have access to it any more. Bummer
Just wanting to mix up a smallish batch, 200# dry, if I didn't need it soon I'd use my blunger/rack method.
Guess I'll give it a go. Shouldn't be too bad since I only need to do a couple loads.

[Arthur]

Ron!
We used one of those at school in Maine, and it I remember correctly we added our slurry (wet slaked down clay) first then added the dry materials and water to taste. I thought it was a lot easier to clean vs. the soldner we had at school too.

[steve]

It sounds like your mixer is wired wong. To have it spin the other way switch the legs (power) one is black and one is red. I had the same problem on my soldner (The new ones have a arrow for spin direction). This is a very common error. When working this blue bird mixer will turn so that it pulls clay (and everything else) into it .